COVID Long Haul My Story - Part 1

morning good evening wherever you are my name is Adam this is my testimonial of my long covet Journey it's December 12 2022 I have been long hauling for almost a year now and wow it's crazy to even put that in words that it's almost been a year I was infected originally just over Christmas um of 2021 and started long hauling a few weeks after that in mid-January with an onset of neurological symptoms um it was a really dark place the first one two three four months were absolute hell um I know how you guys feel I've been there I promised myself when I was almost better if not recovered which I wouldn't say I am completely recovered yet but I would say I'm 90 better that I would put together a series of YouTube videos and start a channel um for my fellow long-haulers because what I realized when I was going through this over the last 12 months was I was so scared and so lost and you know being a middle-aged man um I was super super nervous to talk to anybody about it I was super nervous to talk to even anyone in my family about it other than my wife and my son nobody really knew what I was going through so this is my time to help others it's my time to get a lot of this off my chest um as it's been just this demon that's been sitting on my chest for for the last year and I'm ready to to finally get rid of it and and share all these secrets we call them Secrets or tips and tricks there really is no one secret on how to get better from long covet this is this is more of a compilation of multiple different things that I've done there is no magic pill for long covet so if you're here for that I'm sorry to tell you but there isn't but there is now there is quite a few things that you can do to help yourself give you and give yourself the space the time that you need to heal and give your body which is a miracle your body is a miracle give it the time and space that it needs I mean right now you're you're probably thinking oh my God what do you mean time space like how much time you have so many questions but this is just an introduction video I'm going to go through my story my journey if it resonates with you or if you find similarities in what you're going through then I hope it helps and as I go forward here with my recovery and getting from 90 back to normal back to myself I'll be making videos on um the different things that I did the different devices I use protocols that I followed um and just telling my story really and and I really hope that it does help someone out there um when I first started long hauling I thought I was having constant panic attacks I was constantly in fight or flight I was constantly having adrenaline surges and dumps and I had a couple panic attacks before in the past over my lifetime but this was every day it was two three times a day where I was constantly having these adrenaline attacks and I couldn't get over them and I would take Ativan which I had prescribed for emergencies and it really wasn't doing a whole lot which is where I know wow this this really is an anxiety what's going on here um and as I say I had neurological wonkovitz so for me I really think that there's three different types there's either you know respiratory cardiac uh long covet or there's neurological long covet and there's probably more than that but if you combine all sorts of different stories from other people you could probably come up with those three [Music] um I did a lot of reading on Reddit and there's a couple of sub groups on there um long haulers recovery and and another one that escapes my mind there's a there's one specifically for Recovery stories which is when you get to a point where you just need to read recovery stories you're going to get to that place you're going to find it and instead of reading all the Doom and Gloom on the other subreddits about long cover you've got to migrate yourself over to this one and just read those stories super helpful um anyway so I started typing my symptoms in to Google obviously I was in shock I thought I was going crazy I had head pressure I had um I had head um burning like the right side of my brain was burning and the pressure these symptoms it's like it's hard to describe because they were so intense and and so real at the time that I don't even know my brain tried to block out all of this and and later on I we'll find out that my brain really was trying to block this out I have what's called dpdr at the time so it's depersonalization derealization so my surroundings didn't feel real the people around me myself wouldn't feel real those people didn't feel real I didn't feel real I would catch myself staring at the window for 10 15 20 minutes on end and it was just I thought I was going crazy um I chalk it up to brain inflammation I think my brain was under so much stress from from covid at the time and going into covid that I was just constantly stressing my body I was working out five times a week the other thing that I think caused my Long Haul obviously the state that I was in of stress um but also going right back to exercise so I went right back to the gym putting in five days a week at the gym running two three days after I probably still had covet at the time and but I was feeling better I thought and went right back to this and probably aggravated to the point of what's you know my body was already under this inflammatory response and then I'm causing all this external stress as well and physical stress on my body and it just kind of snapped one day just woke up and said well something's not right here I'm not myself anymore and I would say the worst of these symptoms lasted for probably three to four months um yeah they didn't let up I mean every day was a battle every day was a struggle just to make it through the day and just to get to another day I mean I didn't think I was gonna make it we had my second son this year in July Connor is now almost five months old I didn't think I was gonna make it to see him be born that's the kind of place I was in and that's what brain inflammation does to you um it causes a ton of mental health issues as well anxiety depression um loss of feelings I had no joy no hunger no sadness nothing I couldn't cry I couldn't laugh um and I was eating to survive little bits here and there but I I really had no desire to eat there was no hunger there was no hunger signal one day that just it just snapped and I was hungry and there are certain things in my journey that in certain signposts of where things started to improve and what symptom went away and did it go away completely and I'll go through those in later videos because it's just going to be too long but I mean there's just so much to discuss um a lot of it got journaled so a lot of it got written down in my journal that I started in January um so I've been writing in that every day since then and my memory was so bad I had to look back on how hard those days actually were and you know five six seven months in when I was saying oh my God today's awful today's hard go back read that journal find out exactly how hard and how much hell you were going through um super helpful tool even now when I have bad days you got to go back and look at how bad those days were and how far you've come so that's been a great tool for me um I will note that I was reinfected about a week ago I was reinfected about a week ago I had anxiety about what was going to happen to me and touch wood I'm okay for now and I say that that I've passed covet forever I've been clear from it for about five days now and this time I knew what to do this time I had the resources I had packs of it I had Ivermectin I had the Eye Care protocol from flccc I had everything ready to go and I started it before I even tested positive because I knew what was going on I think I picked it up at the gym um even though I'm super careful and always sanitizing and masking um I use the sauna because the sauna is part of a protocol that I read about along with some drops made in Canada here some DMSO drops and saunaing to reduce inflammation for those who are suffering from neurological long covet so I think I got it from a goof who was in the sauna nothing we can do it's everywhere we can't hide away another part of mental health is is hiding yourself away you can't do it I mean for the first little while it's okay but you got to get to a point where you can step out of your comfort zone and do everything you can to get yourself better um anyways back the reinfection after going on Reddit talking to other folks on there there's three categories you either magically get better you stay the same which is what I was praying for or you get worse I can't get worse you know I can't go backwards so I don't need the miracle but I will take staying at 85 90 which is where I am right now I radically rested so I've rested for two weeks through acute infection and a little bit afterwards as well you absolutely got to do that you got to let your body heal you got enough you have to not put any stress on it no exercise no working out um do relaxing things calm your vagus nerve calm your um central nervous system and activate that parasympathetic nervous system I'll make another video about that too but I think the nervous system for me was on fire that relates to all the neurological stuff as well constantly in a sympathetic State um you have the sympathetic and you have the parasympathetic nervous system and I was in constant sympathetic it was constantly saying oh my God there's a bear he's going to eat you it's kind of like a primal thing versus all right it's time to eat and let's rest and let's digest so I had to get to this parasympathetic side and get out of this sympathetic nervous system side so there's been a ton of stuff that I've done for that one of them is uh vagal nerve stimulation so this is a device that attaches to your ear and also to your back um and it attaches right here onto your ear you put it on the left side only and the other patch will go on your back and there's settings there's actually a group on Facebook Dom wildly has a group um if you're interested in that and what that does is it helps activate your vagus nerve which runs from your brain all the way throughout your body it's related to gas Gastronomy like your your digestive system and everything muscles it's all sorts of stuff and you got to calm that down um that's one device that was not expensive there's really expensive ones but you don't need that they all follow the same principle um breathing and humming and singing and um airbrushing basically you take a brush and you brush your your lymph nodes and and your glyph nodes you can do a massage all sorts of different stuff I'll talk about these in detail if you have questions you can put them in the comments and if you want specific videos I can also make those as well on these things um but for me I really had to calm that down and that was the first thing I did was I have to get my body my body's on fire like another thing this book right here you got to get this if you got neurological long covid you gotta read this Brain on Fire um you will relate to this this girl her story is similar to mine similar to ours she had a problem where she thought she was going crazy and literally her brain was on fire and that's the way I felt I had to calm it down so my number one goal was to get this parasympathetic nervous system constantly activated I needed to get calm down I needed to alleviate stress working through all of this still I didn't mention that I did not stop working I took paternity leave for five weeks to be with my baby and my family I also use the five weeks to concentrate on meditation and grounding and breath work and vagus nerve stimulation and cold showers and Ice exposure saunas um humming and singing and all this stuff it was all so important and nothing else could progress unless I got myself to calm down and not myself I don't mean that but my body my mind the connection had to be made that we weren't on fire anymore and another thing guys time all the long haulers in the subreddit say it time you need time you gotta buy yourself time if you don't buy yourself time you're gonna have a problem but time will heal you I don't mean to Discount those folks who have not been healed by time I mean there's some some folks on the subgroups who who have been sick for two three years but you will see small improvements and and I feel for those folks that are still sick um and I am still sick too I'm not myself I'm not the same person I was before all this began but I'm doing what I can do my part here to help others and share my journey and help those who relate to the things that I'm going through that being said there's folks who have pots and who have breathing problems and all those sorts of things and luckily I didn't have those things um but I did have all the neurological problems and I relate to you guys on the level of that so that's all I'm really going to talk about I can't talk about cardio Cardiology or even though I had all those tests I I mean I just got back from the cardiologist today and you know he ruled out myocarditis and all sorts of stuff I have five or six appointments over the last year just to rule everything out because in the beginning I was having palpitations and really heavy heartbeat chest pain breathlessness in the night and all that stuff and you can chalk that up to inflammation again even though I was reinfected my my heart rate has been above 100 since then even when I'm laying down so you know inflammations at play all throughout the system not just the brain for me I mean especially you get reinfected or you have covid everything's inflamed so that leads me to the next step after you calm the body down after you get this parasympathetic nervous system you make it part of your life you've got to reduce the inflammation you have to um so much so much of we hear about that oxidative stress and and inflammation and we hear it from influencers and things like that but we're talking at a cellular level you've got to do everything you can to reduce inflammation um the first thing that you can do the first thing that I did was Diet go on an anti-inflammatory diet um right away and they make a whole video on on what I used as diet and supplements and I'll do that but go on an anti-inflammatory diet look up what it is even an AIP diet where you eliminate things from your body uh eliminate things from your diet and see what you react to but if you go strict anti-inflammatory that's going to help right away you can start taking things like turmeric you can start making juices and stuff with turmeric and ginger and garlic all those things are going to help reduce inflammation there is lots of supplements too you can look that up on what will help you do that but when you when you do reduce inflammation a lot of your symptoms will start to calm down a bit at least that's what I think none of this is considered medical advice by the way I am not a doctor I am just sharing with you what has helped me and a lot of what I've learned I learned through basically like a form read it as a form it's a message board so what I'm trying to do here is is take what I've learned and put that in a video form because some folks even in the beginning I couldn't read I was having trouble finding my words I was having trouble having conversations and I I couldn't read I'm a big reader I read you know 20 books a year and I couldn't get a few sentences in so when I was having trouble I would listen to audiobooks or I would I would look at YouTube videos and such and there really wasn't any YouTube videos on Long Haul and folks stories and what they've done so I really hope that this does help activate the parasympathetic nervous system reduce inflammation work on your mental health I'm not ashamed to say that I use tools um during my Long Haul to help buy me time Wellbutrin was one of them um I never reacted well to ssris and they gave me a few to try and trial them at the start of this that didn't make me feel good just like they didn't make me feel good years ago when I tried them Wellbutrin I'd had in the past in in when I had some you know depression from losing people in the family and things and it did help me through um some of the first few months of the hard times I then switched to fluvoxamine which is not used for mental health it's used for reducing brain inflammation really they're trialing it they're studying it right now I take 50 milligrams a day broken in half 25 and 25 and they're actually using it now to treat acute covid so I started taking it again when I got covered last week or the week before and uh probably take it for another week or so just to be sure but yeah it's definitely helped I think and uh when I had those brain attacks basically the the burning brain and the pressure and stuff I would start taking it again didn't have to be taken every day um what I mean by that is it didn't have to be taken um constantly for the entire year like I would take it for a few weeks on end and then discontinue it and then if something flare up again in terms of inflammation I would start taking it again um the hippie things the third thing is you gotta change your mindset um yeah I mean I become they call me at work the sage guy so I have my traveling diffuser that goes everywhere with me with calming sense I have my pocket Pharmacy as well none of these products none of this stuff that I've done is endorsed by anyone I'm just giving you what's helped me I mean the stress release and reducer roll on would help me when I was having my panic attacks and my adrenaline surges and stuff I would roll it on my pulse points and also here and I would use it at work when I had to be super discreet and just kind of look like I was blowing my nose or wiping my nose and I was really just I was inhaling as much of the stress release roll-on that I could and you know oh my goodness it's become a meditation corner at work I have a zen garden I have my diffuser going I have a sunlight lamp a sad lamp you call it um and then I have these roll-ons so yeah that's the hippie cord um it's changed my mindset on a lot of things and how important it is to treat I was treating my body well I mean I was eating well I was doing diet and exercise I lost 80 pounds the year before I got covered so I was doing that but I wasn't I wasn't treating my mind well I wasn't taking care of myself um and that's so important mental health is so important and so yeah there's also things that you have to do for your brain so the fourth thing is just um creating new neural pathways so I went to a long haul clinic at the local hospital here and I got five appointments which was amazing there are quite a few complaints about the Health Care system and how they treat long haulers for me I had a good family doctor didn't understand how to treat what I was going through didn't know much about it but was extremely enthusiastic to help me so I led the charge on my recovery and treatments and Specialists and referrals and he was very helpful for me and the long-haul covered Clinic I got to see an occupational therapist who believed me I felt heard I got to learn things about this is before I started doing all these these um um alternative things and they're not alternative I work with a natural path now it's not alternative medicine it's traditional medicine like this is stuff that we've been using for centuries and it goes back to the cavemen all this all this stuff grounding and eating Primal and all sorts of stuff but um yeah the the long-haul clinic at the hospital they helped with um all sorts of different techniques for relaxation and manipulation of the spine and the head and all sorts of stuff I'm working with an osteopath now who's doing even more of that for me so you really got to look outside the box you really gotta try everything at your disposal I understand some of you might not have these things at your disposal because of insurance or because you're in a country where insurance is extra luckily I'm in Canada I feel fortunate I am privileged to have the Universal Health Care system and on top of that I do have benefits through work that allows me a certain amount of visits with these secondary osteopath massage acupuncture all that which has been quite helpful um but if you are in the position where you can try those things you got to do it you got to try them at least once especially massage I use chiropractor too for adjustments for the neck and spine another thing I thought like oh my gosh it feels like there's not enough blood or oxygen or something getting up to this right side of the brain I think those adjustments did help a lot with that um yeah music too music music and uh and and old Hobbies are things that I use to create new neural Pathways so Guitar Hero oh my goodness on easy to start now I'm back to medium it's helpful you remember them from when I when you were younger find something that you did when you're a teenager or a kid try and do it again it was almost like relearning an old hobby or an old thing you used to do with friends I also started doing jigsaw puzzles I started with 100 pieces believe it or not I had trouble I had trouble and now I'm up 2 000. it's part of my recovery form these new neural Pathways I I that was the portion where I was losing words and even my stroke order on my sentences and and things when I was journaling would be different I'd find myself writing letters that didn't make sense to write that letter you're writing it you know three letters down the road and then coming back weird so much about this disease is weird and strange and unknown and you got to do everything you can um yeah so old Hobbies I started playing the guitar it helped at the beginning it did for sure I started just learning chords and now I at the beginning I was playing every day now maybe two or three times a week I'm doing a lesson on Justin Guitar and it's helping I'm just taking and taking my time doing at my own pace and making sure that I'm not doing it to do it I'm doing it now because I enjoy it and I'm doing it because I know I need to do it you could try a language you could do a lingo or something other than other than what you're doing every day for work or or lying in bed um music find what you love this is a screamo band from the early 2000s and I used to love them I used to love that kind of music that's all I started listening to again I don't know if it took my brain back to a point in my life when I was 17 18 years old and I had no cares no worries um but it did help and definitely music was a big part of my recovery I'm gonna make some reaction video songs and some some some reaction videos two songs and also some videos on songs specifically that have helped me and there's been some from Tom McDonald for sure who have made these videos they're inspirational and they can make you want to continue to fight there's a song called fighter right now by I'm that is so helpful and I will definitely post that link for you guys but I'll also make a video about it as well it's worth it it's worth a lesson for sure what else do I have here for you yeah there's more things I mean there's supplements there's diet we talked we can talk about that in a separate video but I the moral of the stories I've come a long way I'm 90 recover I've been reinfected recently it's December 12 2022. I am about nine days from my reinfection and I'm doing okay fingers crossed touch wood I'm gonna keep making videos I'll keep you guys updated but I remember my first days first weeks for seconds first minutes and those minutes seemed like hours which seemed like weeks which seemed like months in time time was all up time was just all over the place it was either super long like the days was just dragging like there's nothing seemed real time didn't seem real finally time has started to become real for me again looking at my watch it's four o'clock that feels right before I'd look at my watch me look at four o'clock oh my God this day feels like it's been three days long but four o'clock makes sense to me now this is these small things honestly there's so many symptoms it's hard to even talk about all of them I'm sure you feel the same it's hard to even list them all when you try and talk to anybody about them but you gotta talk about them and another mistake I made was not opening up to those the closest around me my wife yes my son little big guard he's he's 10 and he kind of knew that Daddy was not doing well he was having some things going on from after covet but my mom my dad my best friend I just kept them in the dark and then wondered why I went why I went why I went dark why I went black until I finally told them I mean maybe May June I started to talk about it more I had to these people that loved me were wondering what the hell was going on and I felt relief especially my best friend when I told him I mean my dad was always there for me I always talked to my dad about things and my mom too she had friends who had gone through some Long Haul but I don't think they really knew exactly what was going on but when I was able to talk to my best friend and tell him what was going on he took a huge weight off my chest and that's another moment you have these Peaks right you have these these signposts that I talked about in your journey where you'll remember them and you'll remember the the day that the tide turned the day where things were better and one more thing there I can't show you because the phone's recording but there's an app called dailyo and I went from this which I still use the journal de Leo 100 you got to use it it allows you to I bought the premium subscriptions like 20 bucks for the year you can track your days and I use awful bad okay good great and now almost 100 so you can track your day by your moon you can also track your day by your activities the weather um chores Hobbies health food all sorts of stuff so that you can start to see patterns and you can start to see trends of when you're having a good day what are you doing on that day are you doing your vagal nerve stimulation are you doing your grounding are you doing your meditation are you doing your um puzzle or whatever and you'll see when you do certain things do you have a good day or do you have a bad day you can also use it as a journal you can add up to three pictures and you can also add text in there as well so I've been using my journal for for longer you know writing sessions and then I type in here a few notes for the day but it's crazy how you'll see like I started using it in August July or August and you'll see back then oh my God the months were brutal and now you start to see a lot of good and a lot of great days pieced together so definitely a good resource you should check it out I think they have a free version as well if you want to try it out before you decide on anything and and go from there um but again guys yeah I this is my first video of my channel um I'm trying to you know reach as many long-haulers as I can um and yeah my name's Adam I'm a long hauler kovid long-haul neurological problems and I hope this video helps you this is my story so I had to do my testimonial my kind of give it all and lay it all out there for for you to see and for me to get it off my chest so that now I can go into making some some more specific videos on what really helped me and we talked about things so briefly I'll be able to break it down and and do um videos on just showing you the things that have helped all right guys thanks so much and I hope you have a great day thanks for watching any questions put them in the comment section and I'll do my best to get back to you

Channel: Beating Long Covid

Views: 5,236

Keywords: longcovid, covid, longhaul, longhaulcovid, tbi, neurological, postcovid, pasc

Id: mwmEG81nTFw

Length: 31min 18sec (1878 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 19 2022